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Europe's Mars Express space probe has begun the long journey to the red planet, but pitfalls lay ahead - including a dreaded encounter with the 'Great Galactic Ghoul'.

The probe, pride and joy of Europe's space community since it lifted off from the plains of Kazakhstan yesterday, "has left the Earth's orbit and is now on its way" to Mars, said Vasily Moroz, head of the Russian team taking part in the mission.

The two-tonne vehicle completed a series of orientation manoeuvres while on a low terrestrial orbit, and was then powered into space by a Russian-made Soyuz-Fregat propulsion rocket, raising it to its cruising speed, Moroz said.

Two days into its journey, while travelling at some 30 km per second, Mars Express will detach itself from the rocket and travel unassisted in 'sleep mode', only contacting Earth once a day, the agency said, quoting officials at the European Space Agency (ESA).

An adjustment to the probe's trajectory will be made in September, ESA officials said, and the 400 million kilometrejourney will continue until late December, when the Mars Express arrives at its destination and the real work begins.

All being well, after a preliminary circling of Mars, the probe will release its precious cargo, the Beagle 2 lander, on 25 December 2003 to land on the planet's surface and start testing the soil.

The mission's holy grail would be the detection of evidence, particularly traces of free-flowing water, indicating that life once existed or even still exists on man's nearest theoretically inhabitable neighbour. First results are expected to be beamed back in the early weeks of next year.

ESA officials were jubilant after the launch, its director of science David Southwood proclaiming the mission to be "off to a great start."

A member of the Beagle 2 team, John Zarnecki, told British media that "as far as we can tell, everything looks fantastic," but warned that there were "a lot of hurdles to get over before we get to that final goal of landing on the surface of Mars and starting to make scientific measurements."

First of these will be the operation three days into the probe's journey in which Beagle 2 blows the bolts that kept it securely attached during blast-off. Its extra clamps will have to be removed remotely so that it can be ejected when Mars Express finally arrives at Mars.

But before then, it will have to overcome the 'Great Galactic Ghoul' - the name jocularly used by rocket scientists to denote the apparent curse that has struck previous Mars missions.

The notion of a ravenous phantom lurking in space to devour probes before they reach Mars was originally coined by the Soviet space programme which lost a long succession of probes aimed at the red planet.

This time however, the Ghoul will have its work cut out as the Mars Express is due to be followed in short order by two U.S. missions: one scheduled for launch on 8 June this year and the other provisionally due to lift off on 25 June, as well as a Japanese probe, the Nozomi (or 'Hope'), expected to arrive near Mars early next year.

The Nozomi was originally launched in 1998 and at one point became lost, a presumed victim of the Ghoul, but was later traced, reoriented and set back on course.